Wisdom of the Rooms: April 23, 2018

Before recovery, I tried to control everything. I would lie in bed at night planning my days and weeks, and I would make endless lists of activities I could follow that would lead to specific results. I played and replayed conversations that were sure to take place to make sure they came out the way I wanted them to. When the last thing I tried to control – my alcohol use – spun out of control, I finally surrendered.

When I got sober, I had to let go of all my plans and schemes for controlling my drinking and drug use. Because I was at bottom, it was easy for me to abandon my old ideas and to ask God to restore me to sanity. Just because this worked for my alcoholism, though, didn’t mean I was willing to turn the rest of my life over. “God, you can have my drinking, but I’ll handle the rest” was my attitude. You can imagine how that went for me.

What I’ve learned over the years is that my life gets better in direct proportion to my willingness to trust God with the other areas of it. It continues to be hard to let go and act with faith – especially when I’m in fear – but each time I do I’m rewarded with a freedom and a joy that could never have come so long as I continued to try to control things. Today if I’m not willing to let go, then I pray for the willingness to be willing.